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In my quest to post “polished pieces” and final design projects on this blog , I’ve gone months without a peep. This is nonsense!

So today I present you with something at its beginning: my kitchen. When I moved here 3 years ago, I was charmed by its age. Plenty of apartments I looked at had sleekly renovated kitchens and modern cabinetry, but they left me cold. This place was different: its kitchen hadn’t gone through any changes in 30+ years – for better or for worse.

Its white wood cabinets are decorated with branch-like pulls that are quirky and actually quite charming. And the layout is nice. But it’s ripe for an overhaul, so here we are. Enter my renderings:

The best way for me to imagine my space is to put pencil to paper. While digital drawing tools are great, drafting lets me work out a scheme more organically. So after drafting a few designs and a rough 3D perspective, I used watercolors to work through the different color and material options.

Painting out four different versions allowed me to get a broad stroke visual of how materials like wood, white granite and dark vs. lighter cabinetry would read in the space and work together (or potentially against each other).

I alternated between white or wood counters, charcoal finished lower and upper cabinets, and white subway tile with antique brass pulls and accents. The renderings are by no means polished; I got scrappier as I went, quickly getting the color on the page to see the effect.

This helped me visualize potential fixtures and materials, which all nicely bridge the gap between modern and classic, with a nod to industrialism.

Sutton Faucet, Restoration Hardward

Hex Knob, Schoolhouse Electric

Vintage Woods Porcelain Tile

Subway tile

Greenwood Pull, Schoolhouse Electric

So I’m close to a winner: in lieu of going monochromatic, I’m opting for an eclectic look: dark cabinets on the bottom to tie the space in with the rest of the apartment, with white on top. I’ve also heard wood top counters are high maintenance, so I’ll bring in that look with reclaimed wood paneling around the island, or with porcelain wood tile as the backsplash.

So it’s go time. But not quite yet: I’m trying to enjoy the feeling of having made decisions! Sometimes that’s just as much fun as the execution.

But nothing will be as fun as sitting at a new counter for the first time, rendering something new.